Maybe AP vote will hop on the U. bandwagon

Recession? What recession? The only thing Mike Cherry is worried about is whether he'll have enough "How Sweet It is" Sugar Bowl shirts, sweatshirts, drinking mugs, hats, footballs, shot glasses and other commemorative merchandise when school resumes next Monday.

Mike is marketing director for the Campus Store at the University of Utah, where Sugar Bowl stuff has been as popular as Louie Sakoda — and that was before the Utes beat up on Alabama, 31-17, in last Friday's Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.

"The biggest win the University of Utah has ever, ever had — in anything," is how Cherry puts it, echoing a sentiment reverberating from Evanston to Wendover and back again.

Now they get to add "Champions" and "13-0" to the gear.

"It's going to be a madhouse in here. We won't be able to write orders fast enough," Cherry predicts, noting that in less than 24 hours after the historic victory, more than 600 orders for championship apparel had already arrived at the store's Web site, campusstore.utah.edu.

"A lot of people are asking about the gray hats the team wears after a win," he adds. "We'll have those too."

Win and the world doesn't just win with you, it dresses with you.

Ute mania is spreading like the wind. Everybody wants to be a Ute. By about next Wednesday, the entire Salt Lake Valley will be wearing a Ute logo on something.

Wearing a red scarf, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in his second inauguration ceremony Monday declared it "Utah Utes Day."

The governor also proclaimed the only unbeaten major college football team "America's new No. 1" — which marked a historic first for the two-term governor: a declaration on Capitol Hill that received absolutely no argument, dissent or outright guffaws, not even from Democrats.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard you look, you will not find Huntsman's name on the list of the 65 voters on the Associated Press Top 25 polling board.

The only way the Utes can get any kind of official No. 1 standing out of their epic and perfect 13-0 season is to somehow get enough of those 65 AP voters to put them atop their year-end ballots.

The AP vote selects one No. 1, while the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) de facto national championship game tomorrow night in Miami between 12-1 Florida and 12-1 Oklahoma decides the other No. 1.

It is expected that the Florida-Oklahoma winner will get both nods, and one plus one will equal one.

But it is not a foregone conclusion.

What if, say, Florida and Oklahoma both play awful?

What if they produce a lackluster scoreless tie?

What if each team gets lost on the way to the stadium?

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